Fortel Castle

This castle was the residence of John boy O Munehane [Monaghan] in 1582 (Nicholls 1994, vol. 2, 545). In 1650 William Monaghan of Fortel was transplanted to Connaught. The Down Survey barony map of Ballybritt shows a tower at 'Fortalla, Shanvagh and Bealnahuoly' (Loeber 1988 vol. 3, 28). Indicated on the first edition of the OS 6-inch map as 'Fortel Castle'. This building has been greatly altered in the eighteenth century with the addition of brick fireplaces and the insertion of wooden floors. Today only the west and southern walls of the L-plan house survive intact standing four storeys high. There is evidence for the wall footings of a corner tower on the north-east angle of the house. The visible medieval features of the castle consist of a flat-headed window in the north wall at first floor level. Originally there was a machicolation at wall-walk level situated off centre to the south on the west wall of the house. This may have protected the entrance below at ground floor level. The remains at Fortel suggest that it was a late sixteenth or early seventeenth-century fortified house that was greatly altered in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Offaly' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 23 May 2011

Fortel Castle was held by the Monaghan family in the 16th and 17th centuries, with John Boy O'Munehane (Monaghan) recorded there in 1582 and William Monaghan residing there in 1650 before being transplanted to Connaught. It is remembered as part of the historical presence of the Monaghan clan in the region and as an example of the displacement of Irish families during the Cromwellian conquest.